"Men must not awake," the shining shadow goes on, in dull and hollow tones.
"Don't worry!" says the ironical voice, and at that moment it terrifies me.
Several bodies arise on their fists into the darkness—I see them by their heavy groans—and look around them.
The shadow talks to himself and repeats his insane words:—
"Men must not awake."
The voice opposite me, capsizing in laughter and swollen with a rattle, says again:—
"Don't worry!"
Yonder, in the hemisphere of night, comets glide, blending their cries of engines and owls with their flaming entrails. Will the sky ever recover the huge peace of the sun and the stainless blue?
A little order, a little lucidity are coming back into my mind. Then I begin to think about myself.
Am I going to die, yes or no? Where can I be wounded? I have managed to look at my hands, one by one; they are not dead, and I saw nothing in their dark trickling. It is extraordinary to be made motionless like this, without knowing where or how. I can do no more on earth than lift my eyes a little to the edge of the world where I have rolled.